


Extended Invitation

by infinitecompositions



Series: We're All Friends Here [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, And May terrifies him, Dive Bars, Gen, Happy recognizes Badassery on sight, Referenced alcohol consumption, The Beginning, attempted physical assault, gripe nights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23500792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitecompositions/pseuds/infinitecompositions
Summary: May Parker was nothing like what Happy expected when he first met her, but one thing was for sure - he was glad he talked his way onto her good side.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker
Series: We're All Friends Here [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688329
Kudos: 13





	Extended Invitation

He met the kid at a dive bar, a place he was surprised May even let him work at when he met her. He had a few dives he would duck into periodically where he could vent about ‘the Boss’ or ‘the big man upstairs’, always meaning Tony (very rarely he talked about ‘the Lady’, meaning Pepper, but if the bartenders thought he meant a wife he never corrected them).

The kid was new, and Happy didn’t quite trust him, at first. Then the kid lit up, called him by name (said one of the other bartenders had mentioned him) and pulling down his favorite drink. The kid was like a puppy, in some senses – excitable, peppy, and more than pleased when he did a good job – but in other senses he could be downright creepy. Peter had a way of seeing through people and cutting through the bullshit, and it scared Happy that in five minutes he was able to tell when he was lying or when he was hiding the truth. He wouldn’t call him on it – he was too professional for that, instead just listening to the obfuscations – but his face betrayed his suspicion and Happy found it harder to lie in the face of the kid’s blatant disappointment than he ever had lying directly to Tony’s face and being called on it.

If the kid could weaponize that look of disappointment, the world would be at peace or in pieces, and Happy was honest-to-God a bit curious which one it would be.

This dive was in a pretty sketchy place, so Happy felt the need to walk the kid home. The kid was sly, too, keeping Happy satisfied with a drink when he was empty, but talking him into ones with lower alcohol content or one that would take him longer to drink (only once did the kid talk him into some food, but he did push some chips towards Happy a couple of times that he would snack from).

He was certainly buzzed, maybe even close to drunk, but the kid was good at what he did and kept him from getting so blacked-out he lost his wallet and keys on the subway home and had to call Tony and admit he had been out drinking. The least he could do for sparing him the humiliation was helping the kid get home safe.

The kid was rail thin – he was begging to get mugged, especially walking out of the back of a bar with tip money.

“Kid, you’re not convincing me to leave you alone.” He twisted his neck to get it to pop, found himself mildly annoyed when he couldn’t get that satisfying string of pops down the top of his spine that he liked.

“Isn’t this stalking? I think this is stalking. And I’m like. Half your age, dude.”

“Not like that.” Happy felt a yawn come on and swallowed it down with the practice that came from an engineering rant from Tony that Tony knew Happy wouldn’t understand but went ahead with anyway because it was more about hearing the problem out than it was hearing someone ask questions about it. “Just making sure you don’t get hurt.”

“I can watch out for myself.”

The kid wasn’t fucking kidding.

*

The fact that there was even an instinct in the kid to swing at the guy coming jumping towards them said a lot more about the kid than Happy was willing to think about.

Who the hell taught the kid to fight like one of those Gumby toys, for one? Kid was all flexibility and wit going as quick as he punched. Happy figured Tony could take some tips from this kid. Lord knew he relied so much on the technology he sometimes forgot how to throw a punch. Armor only solved so many problems.

That thought was cast out when the kid did something with his legs that backfired spectacularly with the added benefit of making him look a methed up rat.

The assailant, whoever he was, was still willing to give up when the kid jumped back like he didn’t even feel the fall. He had a cut on his forehead and a bloody lip, but he certainly seemed to be as bouncy as Happy had seen him at the bar. When the guy raised his hands in surrender, where Happy would have wanted to call the cops, Peter just waved and told him to clean up his act some, be a shame to have to kick his ass again sometime.

The overconfidence of youth, in all its glory, was something Happy had never understood. He had seen it in Tony when he was younger (sometimes still, but it was waning over time), and he saw it in this kid. He was fully confident that nothing would happen that would kill him between today and tomorrow. Happy had seen enough of the world that he was skeptical of surviving the next hour some days, let alone the next week. His boss painting targets on his own back (and, in the same breath even if on accident, Happy and Pepper’s) didn’t help with his estimation of his life expectancy.

Peter guided him down a few streets. “You really didn’t have to walk me back.”

“I get that, but I’m going to anyway.”

“May’ll probably try to feed you. Or make you sleep it off in the house.”

“May?”

“My aunt. Great lady, bit protective sometimes.”

The apartment complex was as generic as they came, and the apartment Peter led Happy to was up four flights of stairs and down a confusing set of hallways. “Elevator’s broken, May is going spare trying to convince the landlord to fix it.”

May, it happened, was around Happy’s own age, so young for an aunt of someone at least twenty-one years old. She was also skeptical of the older man walking her nephew/son home and was quick to interrogate him under the guise of feeding him in thanks for ‘doing her a favor’. If he had ever feared Pepper before, he was thanking any gods out there that she had never met May “Definition of Badass Motherfucker Hiding It Way Too Well” Parker.

There may have been implicit threats involved in their conversation to that Peter was either actually oblivious to, or that he was pretending to be oblivious to. Happy couldn’t tell.

(Later, when he knew the kid better, he would realize the kid wasn’t just pretending not to see the threats, but was actively laughing at Happy behind the guise of just being excited to introduce one of the patrons from work to his aunt. Little shit.)

The couch he was told to sleep off his drinks on wasn’t the comfiest thing in the world, but the blanket Peter brought out to him was soft, and May was nice enough to give him coffee and a Tylenol in the morning before saying a word. Greasy food was on the table, and Peter was fairly fresh-faced for a student hitting a 9 AM class after a shift that lasted until 1 AM and a discussion with his aunt and Happy that kept him up until 4.

After Peter was out the door, the latch secured behind him, May turned around. “If you’re going to take an interest in his safety, I have a couple things to say.

“I appreciate the extra set of eyes, but don’t pressure him into making the safe decision – he’ll just resist it. He tries to be smart, but he’s still as dumb as any other twenty-one year old. Talk up the dumb option instead, and suddenly he doesn’t want to do it.

“Second, we have a weekly gripe session. Thursday nights at 8 PM. Peter’s on patrol, and next week it’s Karen’s turn to bring the booze, and she likes it strong. Bring some food and we’ll call it a party.”


End file.
